


Sun Worshipper

by ficlicious



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Clever Toni Stark, F/F, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Icarus myth, M/M, Minor James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Other, Protective Rhodey, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:50:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9092089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: Feathers gleam in the pre-dawn light, the wax and iron beneath glinting and glittering as Rhodey's fingers smooth them away from the harness. “I don’t know that I share your faith Apollo will catch you.”


  “That’s because you’re not a sun worshipper, honeybear,” Antonia says softly, flashing him a soft grin over her shoulder. 

Greek myth AU, in which Toni is imprisoned in a tower by her father, but doesn't intend to stay where she's put. Because she's a sun worshipper. She has loved the sun since she was a baby, and the sun has loved her back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ask for prompt ideas on Tumblr, get some really, _really_ good ones.
>
>> Prompt idea: Icarus AU, with tony and partner of your choice, one as Icarus, the other as the sun/Apollo? Maybe happy ending?
> 
> Chapter 1 of 2. 

Antonia stands on her balcony, impatient for the day to begin. Night hovers still at the horizon, and the wind cutting from the ocean waves is freezing against her face, but she does not care. Not when today is finally her moment to escape, to cast off her bonds, to be free. A light, bubbly buoyancy fills her as the anticipation crests and falls, peaks and ebbs, and a broad smile breaks across her face as she waits for the sun to rise.

Behind her, the air ripples slightly, displacing as Rhodes manifests from the aether whence he came, and she looks back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “You look tired, honeybear,” she says, after a moment of careful consideration, then turns her gaze back to the lightening horizon. “I thought gods didn’t suffer from exhaustion.”

Rhodes’ forehead creases and he sighs heavily. “Once again, I am not a god,” he says. “I’m a demigod. And we suffer exhaustion just fine, especially when dealing with intransigent mortals like you.” He reaches out to touch her bare shoulder, and his hand is warm and gentle. “Do you really want to do this, Antonia? There’s no guarantee that--”

“Either it’ll happen, or it won’t, Rhodey.” She covers his hand with hers and squeezes reassuringly. “I just know I can’t stay locked up in Father’s tower anymore. And I refuse to marry that Tiberius idiot he dredged up for me.”

“No,” he says, and goes to the closet to pull up the hidden panels, carefully lifting her invention from its concealment behind the wall. Feathers gleam in the pre-dawn light, the wax and iron beneath glinting and glittering as his fingers smooth them away from the harness. “No, you really can’t. I just don’t know that I share your faith Apollo will catch you.”

“That’s because you’re not a sun worshipper, honeybear,” she says softly, flashing him a soft grin over her shoulder. “Besides. I may be an intransigent mortal, but there’s divine blood in my veins. I always thought that the Olympians held to the standard of ‘go big, or go home’. Will you help me, or not?”

Rhodes scowls, but nods reluctantly. “Of course I’ll help you. But if Apollo doesn’t catch you, if Hephaestus doesn’t intervene, you’ll fall into Poseidon’s realm, and he’s never liked your father. Your best bet is for Hades to take you from there, and when your best bet is for Hades to collect your soul…” He breaks off, shaking his head with thinned, disapproving lips.

“Hush, Rhodey,” she says, but gently, and she feels the prickling sensation of the air beginning to warm, sure warning that the sun is rising. “Everything will be fine. Excuse me a moment, honeybear. I need to greet the dawn.”

She pulls loose the ties holding her gown in place and steps from the falling linen onto the balcony as the glow across the eastern horizon blazes into a fierce, brilliant slash of light that spills across the water. She has loved the sun since she first opened her eyes as a babe in her long-dead mother’s arms. The breaking of the dawn chases her fears away, washes her clean in warm golden light, fills her with hope and peace. She is never alone in the sunshine.

She has loved the sun since she was a babe in her mother’s arms, and the sun, she knows, loves her back.

She throws her arms wide as light spills across her skin, laughing softly with delight as it warms her, fills her, lingers on the curves of her hips and the planes of her face, bulwarks her against the chill of the ocean breeze. No husband’s touch will ever be so intimate, so cherishing, and welcome to her.

When she turns back and bends to scoop up her gown, Rhodes stares at her, and there's a dumbstruck look, awe and astonishment, on his face. She arches an eyebrow at him and ties her gown back in place. “Why do you look so surprised? You've seen me naked before.”

He shakes his head, mutely, and clears his throat. “You,” he says in a tone heavy with wonder, eyes still full of disbelief and awe, “might just make your plan work, Toni.”

Her hands still on her ties, and her breath catches in her throat. “What did you see?”

He shakes his head again. “You glowed,” he replies. “Bright as any star in the sky. Maybe you’re right. Maybe Apollo will catch you.”

“Of course he will,” she says serenely. She grins, ducks her head, feels the warmth swirl and swell within her. “For a god, Rhodey,” she chides, “you really don’t have any faith at all.”

“Demigod,” he grumbles, and folds her in an embrace that trembles only a little.

\----

Rhodes departs soon after, promising to return with a blessing of Apollo from the temple at Delos in her name. Antonia bathes and tidies her rooms, then takes to the balcony to sit and bask in the sunshine and the breeze until her noon meal is brought.

When the doors open, her father’s metal servitors file in, carrying fresh supplies for the day. Antonia rises to meet them, to take her tray and her jug of wine, and tucks herself somewhere out of the way while the servitors go about their business. She barely tastes the bread and fruit, only nibbles on the cheese wedges, perhaps drinks a little too much wine.

She wonders when her father will next to come check on her, wonders if the servitors have a way of communicating with him. She wonders when he’ll discover her escape. Will it be today? Tomorrow? The day he intends to wed her to the idiot?

Her relationship with her father is contentious at best. Her blood is divine, tracing from Hephaestus the Smith through his daughter, Euthenia of the younger Charites, down the generations to her mother and to her. She knows her godly heritage is the only reason her father chose to marry her mother, because he hoped that union with Hephaestus’ descendant would mean the God of Smiths would turn favor and generosity to his inventions and innovations.

Her mother believed that Antonia was the greatest gift Hephaestus could have given Father, with her brilliant, quick mind and deft, confident hands. Her instincts for engineering and construction were so strong she created an innovative axle and shaft system for her father’s carriages at the age of three. Her father has never seen it the way her mother did. He only ever saw a child building devices he could not even conceive. Antonia’s first sun shrine had been the final insult, in her father’s eyes. Being bested by his daughter, a child who worshipped the sun instead of the forge, _that_ was something he could never forgive.

She knows that her father might have loved her mother, but certainly has no love for her, fatherly or otherwise. His jealousy precludes that. Her confinement in the tower proves that.

The servitors finish their tasks and file out as silently and mechanically as they entered, taking soiled linens and garbage with them. The doors shut again, the locks engaging with an ominous clang. Antonia waits another moment, to be sure they have truly gone, and then leaps to her feet.

She tears the concealing panels from the wall, breaking one of the boards in the process. She reaches into the hole left behind and pulls her harness free with shaking hands. From beneath her wings, she hauls out the small package, wrapped in linen and canvas, and a bundle of clothing.

She strips to her skin, pulls on the warmer clothes. The supple leather gleams in the sunshine, deep red and burnished gold from the broad bands made to hook into clasps on the span of the wings. She braids her hair, quick and efficient, a rapid, tight weave she’s practiced a dozen times in the last few weeks, and stomps into her boots.

She tucks the package into the bodice of her vest and hoists the wings over her shoulders, settling the harness into place and fumbling with the buckles and straps. “Rhodes,” she whispers, eyes shutting as she sends out a fervent, short mental prayer, feeling a little ridiculous at praying to her best friend. “Rhodes, I need your help now.”

“I'm here,” he says behind her, and warm, dark hands slide over here, helping her trembling fingers with the buckles and fasteners. “I'm with you.”

She's so edgy her customary control slips for a moment, and tears burb her eyes, choke her throat. She doesn't have the precious seconds to spare to dash them from her cheeks.

The last locking mechanism clicks into place, and the unfamiliar weight of elegant wings settles along her shoulders and arms. She slides her arms through the leather straps, securing each set before moving to the next, until she’s grasping the last pair, comfortably positioned to wrap each hand around one.

She moves to the mirror and extends her arms, bending and ducking and twisting to check the lay of the sleek, golden-brown hawk feathers painstakingly placed in the wax mold. She’s been careful all these long months, and not even a single pinfeather has been ruffled.

“I think I’m ready,” she says, breathy and strangled, because the enormity of what she’s about to do is just hitting her. To shake it off, she turns towards Rhodes, spreads her arms and their attached wings again, and does a slow spin to show them off. “How do I look?”

There’s a light in Rhodes’ eyes she’s never seen before, a look of lustful interest that hits her low and hard, sears heat into her cheeks. “Like a goddess,” he says, frank and approving. “If Apollo is idiot enough to to let you fly past, you can come live with me. Mom likes you.”

Antonia’s breath catches again, still quick and light from the unexpected, unprotected admiration of Aphrodite’s son. “One thing at a time, honeybear,” she says, but links her fingers through his to take any sting he might find out of the words. “First I have to fly to the sun, avoid being caught by Father at any point, avoid falling into the sea, avoid being caught by Poseidon, avoid any number of human, natural and divine threats. After that, I’m all yours.”

“I’m a patient man,” Rhodes says amicably, then his face darkens, shadows, with concern. “Toni… Are you sure this is what you want? You could come with me now. To Tartarus with what I’m supposed to do. I should have dragged you out of here years ago, rescued you the second your father put you in here.”

Her heart softens, warms, and it feels in many ways like the heat of the sun still pervading her body and lending strength to her limbs. “Rhodes, my darling,” she says, quiet and affectionate, and cups a cheek with a hand hastily freed from its leather wing-strap. “I don’t wait for anyone to rescue me. I rescue myself.”

He heaves a sigh, covers her hand with his and looks disgruntled. But his eyes are sparkling when he says, “Does that mean you don’t want me to keep an eye on you in case you start diving for the sea? You prefer to rescue yourself from that too?”

“Oh you.” She shakes her head, can’t help the grin. “No, honeybear. If I fall out of the sky and into the sea, you can rescue me then.”

\---

Rhodes helps her to balance on the rail, and she stares down, down, down, at the hungry sea below. Deep within, she thinks she can see the faces of Poseidon’s servants, cold and waiting, waiting for a single misstep, a slip, a fall. Only Rhodes’ hands, warm and solid on her hips, keep her from staggering back off the rail.

“You got this,” he says, quiet and encouraging, and squeezes her hips gently. “Don’t look down. Don’t look back. Just spread your arms and fly.”

She pulls in a shaky breath and blows it out as she squares her shoulders, brings her arms up. The breeze rifles through the careful arrangement of feathers, and she can feel the lift pull at her shoulders. With effort, she brings her arms down again, and her feet rise from the rail for just a moment. “I’m ready,” she says, though she’s as far from ready as she can possibly get.

Rhodes lets go of her hips and steps backwards. Antonia throws him a grin over her shoulder. “Well,” she says. “Here goes nothing.”

She steps into the sky, pushing off the rail with a strong kick, and lets the world drag her towards the sea. Whatever happens now, whether she spreads her wings and soars back into the clouds, whether she falls into the sea and is dragged by the reaching hands into the depths, or whether Rhodes catches her and spirits her away to his home, she is free from the tower. Free from her father.

She laughs, a high pealing delighted sound that spirals behind her, and throws her arms wide. For a bad moment, she thinks the hardened wax will not hold against the force of the wind suddenly catching under her wings, that the feathers will tear loose and her flight to the sun ends with a plunge into the sea, that her first free breath will be her last.

The wax holds, the feathers work, and Antonia soars at dizzying speeds into the sky, laughing like a madwoman.

For a time, she concentrates on nothing but learning the fine adjustments that come natural to birds. She’s watched hawks and eagles, terns and gulls, carefully from her balcony, studied even the smallest twitches of their wings and carefully memorized their motions, but practical application of theoretical knowledge is always a tricky creature.

But she learns fast, and flies like she should have been born with wings. The skies are hers, and she flirts with the clouds, enjoys the wind streaming through her hair, turns her face to the sunlight as the day grows long and golden. She makes good time, and as the sky turns rose-dark, the cliffs of Delos appear to her right.

She alights on the cliffs, and tries to let her arms fall to her sides, but has to bite her lip to keep from shrieking at the pain of muscles strained by unfamiliar flight and locked in position from her extended activity. By the time she manages to work her hands to her sides, she can taste blood in her mouth and her vision is blurred by the steady stream of tears.

She works her harness off as carefully as she can, inspects it for damage and is pleased to see it’s intact. She sets it aside and works her small belt pouch open, extracting a vial of ointment meant to sooth aching muscles. She had anticipated strain, but vastly underestimated the extent, and she rubs the pungent cream across her shoulders and neck, hoping that it will last the journey.

Despite the pain, she sleeps well, and wakes refreshed by the pre-dawn chill in a way she has never felt. She can ill-afford to lose time, not knowing when her father will discover her missing, not knowing where he may have his men stationed or how far his influence stretches, but she hurries to the temple regardless, because Delos is where her god was born, and she wants to greet the dawn in the place most sacred to him.

When she has finished her supplications, felt the warmth of the sun ignite through her as she dances before the _kouros_ representing Apollo, a scarlet-haired priestess approaches her, holding Antonia’s clothing out respectfully. “You should hurry, sunshine,” she says gravely, and her accent is strange to Antonia’s ears. “Your father is riding hard to reclaim you.”

Antonia doesn’t ask how this nameless priestess knows who she is, she doesn’t demand proof of the priestess’s words. She simply dresses as swiftly as she can make her hands move.

The priestess tilts her head thoughtfully. “You could just ask him to come for you,” she says. “And he likely would. Why are you putting yourself through these trials?”

“Because,” Antonia says, sliding her bracers back into place and hissing softly at the soreness in her upper arms, “I am not an ornament and I am not a trophy. I earn my way or not at all.”

“Good for you,” the priestess murmurs in approval, but when Antonia looks up, the priestess is gone, as if she never was. In the place she stood, a silver feather trembles in the breeze against the marble. After a moment of staring, Antonia leans down and plucks it from the floor, tucking it carefully into her bodice before hurrying back to the cliffs where she hid her wings.

 


End file.
